A version of this story on “Big Little Lies” first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.

Four lead women in “Big Little Lies,” the HBO miniseries based on Liane Moriarty‘s book, all landed Emmy nominations, Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon in the lead category and Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley in supporting. (Zoë Kravitz, the last of the main actresses, was left out.)

Dern, Woodley and actors/executive producers Kidman and Witherspoon described the rare experience of making the miniseries, which starts with a murder investigation and then slowly unveils victim, murderer and motive over 10 episodes. Alexander Skarsgard, who plays Kidman’s emotionally and physically abusive husband, was also nominated — but these conversation were about the women at the center of the miniseries.

REESE WITHERSPOON I found the manuscript and sent it to Nicole, and we decided to do the project together. She met with Liane Moriarty first and got the rights, and then we got David Kelly. And then Jean-Marc Vallee came on.

NICOLE KIDMAN For me, it was the complication of the women, and the strength of their stories, and the fact that it focused on the female relationships and was told primarily through the female point of view. That’s why the book was so appealing. And it seemed to warrant being told, because amidst the entertainment of it, underneath were issues that were incredibly topical and relevant and real.

WITHERSPOON We had to decide, Is it a miniseries or a movie? And we decided it would be better to do this for television. If we had done it as a two-hour movie, it might have been about two of the women, not all five.

KIDMAN I think it would be strange if Reese and I produced something that was all men. Don’t we have enough of those? So it was very important for us to throw our weight behind finding these great female roles, and calling our friends and people we admire. That was the glorious part of it.

Variety has announced the host committee for the annual Variety & Women in Film Television Nominees Celebration, which will take place Friday, Sept. 15 at Gracias Madre in West Hollywood.

The cast of “Big Little Lies” will make a big showing at the event, with Laura Dern, Reese Witherspoon, and Nicole Kidman all part of the committee. Emmy-nominated actresses Thandie Newton of “Westworld” and Claire Foy of “The Crown” will also make appearances, as well as Ava DuVernay, who received three Emmy nominations this year, and network and streaming executives like Mike Hopkins, CEO of Hulu and Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer at Netflix. Lena Waithe, who became the first black woman to be nominated for outstanding writing for a comedy series this year for “Master of None,” will also attend.

“We are excited to be partnering once again with Women In Film on our annual party that celebrates all the inspiring work female actors, executives, directors and writers have accomplished this year in television,” said Debra Birnbaum, executive editor of television at Variety. “This has truly been a groundbreaking year, as reflected by the Emmy nominations.”

“It has been an exciting season for female-centered television — in front of and behind the camera — with three women nominated for directing drama series,” added Kirsten Schaffer, executive director of Women in Film. “We are thrilled to be partnered with Variety once again to honor all of the female nominees as we continue to work toward achieving gender-parity in Hollywood.”

The Hollywood Reporter have published a fantastic interview with Reese in which she talks in depth about her entire career – from the early days of advertising campaigns, to her 90’a movies Fear, Twilight, Election, moving onto Legally Blonde, Sweet Home Alabama and Vanity Fair, Oscars days of Walk The Line, her low patch of 2008-2012, then moving into producing Wild and Gone Girl, and the process of Big Little Lies. This is a must-listen!

‘Awards Chatter’ Podcast — Reese Witherspoon (‘Big Little Lies’)

‘America’s Sweetheart’ reflects on becoming an A-list superstar, hitting a terrible slump during which she was declared a ‘has-been’ and then reinventing herself as an actress/producer and Oprah-like champion of great books.

“I won the Oscar and I felt really confused about what to do next,” Reese Witherspoon confesses, in reference to her 2006 best actress victory for playing June Carter Cash in Walk the Line, as we sit down at the Formosa Recording Studio in Santa Monica to record an episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s ‘Awards Chatter’ podcast. “I had paralysis — Oscar-induced paralysis,” she adds, along with her trademark giggle. “You don’t know what to do!” For Witherspoon, who had been on Hollywood’s A-list since 2001’s Legally Blonde, it marked the beginning of several years of personal and professional frustration, during which some began to write her off. “Someone in The New Yorker said that I was ‘a has-been’ or my career was over, and I remember thinking — how old was I in 2012, like 36? — I was like, ‘Wow, that’s brutal!’ That really bugged me.” But what no one, including Witherspoon, could have known — or even imagined — at that time was that her best days still were ahead of her, and that by 2017, she not only would have re-established herself as one of the most popular and respected actresses in the business (picking up an Oscar nom for 2014’s Wild and an Emmy nom for 2017’s Big Little Lies), but also as an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated producer (for those same two projects) wielding influence in the literary community not unlike that of Oprah Winfrey.

Witherspoon was born in New Orleans to a father who served in the Air Force and a mother who was a delivery nurse. The family moved around, but ultimately settled in Nashville, where their precocious young “type A” daughter soon began taking acting lessons and appearing in advertisements and commercials, landing a local agent at the age of 12. At 14, during the summer before starting high school, she found her first starring role in a movie, Robert Mulligan’s 1991 film The Man in the Moon. Even before the film’s release, her screen test went viral, and she quickly became in-demand. Throughout high school, she would work during the summers. She then starred in 1996’s Freeway, turning in a performance that “got a lot of attention,” during a gap-year before enrolling at Stanford; but she then spent just seven months at Stanford before irresistible film offers led her to move to Los Angeles and focus full-time on her career.

As a young-adult actress, Witherspoon gave memorable performances in strong films like Gary Ross’ Pleasantville (1998), as a nineties girl who finds herself in the fifties, and Alexander Payne’s Election (1999), as an ambitious and calculating high school student who “became a political archetype.” Then, in 2001, she played Elle Woods, a material girl who pursues her ex all the way to Harvard Law School, in Robert Luketic’s Legally Blonde. The $11 million movie had a $20 million opening weekend and made her, at just 23, and already a mother of a 1-year-old, a huge star. “I loved that character” and “underdog story,” she reflects, while also remembering the baggage that came with its success. “That’s when paparazzi started for me,” she says. “That’s when I started getting chased by 10 or 15 people.”

Is it any surprise that actor-producer Reese Witherspoon’s first major TV project, HBO’s hit miniseries Big Little Lies, resulted in not just an Emmy nomination for her, but a whopping 16 for the show overall? The star, who also produced literary adaptations Gone Girl and Wild, turned Liane Moriarty’s thriller into a moody, suspenseful — but wonderfully funny — must-watch series that has viewers begging for a second season. And as lovable but complicated busybody Madeline Martha Mackenzie, Witherspoon, 41, was at the top of her game, spitting the show’s funniest lines one moment and delivering taut drama the next.

EW caught up with Witherspoon ahead of the Emmy Awards (airing Sept. 17) to talk about making the switch from film to TV, what story lines could be explored in a potential season 2, and how her costar (and co-producer) Nicole Kidman convinced her that her comedic role was necessary for the series.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This is essentially your first TV role, aside from some guest spots.REESE WITHERSPOON: Yeah, this is the only thing I’ve ever done! [Laughs] I’ve never done TV before, other than being Jennifer Aniston’s sister on Friends and a Lifetime movie when I was 15.

Tell me about making the switch. What was it like getting to spend so much more time with a character?
It’s a very different process. It’s a much longer process, but as an actor, the ability to dig deeper into a character and have more time to live with these characters, I think [helps] you create a more whole picture of a human life. Nicole [Kidman] and I were approached and asked to make it into a feature film right before we were about to make a decision about what network we were going to go with, and we just really felt like we wanted to tell the story of five women, not two, and there just wouldn’t be enough time within a film format to get that deep level of storytelling.

And also, to be quite frank, audiences are much more deeply invested in these long-form storytelling opportunities. I think you get a lot more engagement. You’re chasing the audience that is Nicole and I’s audience for years and years, but it’s also Shailene’s audience and Zoë Kravitz’s audience. It’s important to go where your audience is, not expect them to necessarily come to you.

You had to balance so much in this role: Madeline had dramatic and comedic scenes, and she was a bully as much as she was a protagonist.
It was funny, when we were making it, Laura Dern and I kept looking at each other and going, “I think we’re in a comedy and everybody else is in a drama.” But I think that’s what makes it relatable and why people see themselves in it, because there’s a part of it that is so much about the intimacy of marriage and relationships and parenting and the secrets we keep from each other. And then there’s this whole other element of tension and mystery and murder, and that any one of us is capable of something truly horrible at any moment.

Last weekend Reese attended the Television Critics Association Awards in Beverly Hills, where Big Little Lies was nominated for 3 awards. It picked up the award for Outstanding Achievement in Movies, Miniseries and Specials, and Reese joined her director Jean-Marc Vallee, co-producers Per Saari, Nathan Ross, Bruna Papandrea, and writer David E. Kelly on stage to accept the award – congratulations to the Big Little Lies crew! Reese looked elegant in a little black dress by Antonio Berardi with jewellery from Eva Fehren. HQ photos from the event can be found in our Gallery:

The Television Critics Association (TCA) recognized the top programs and actors from the 2016-2017 television season tonight at its 33RD Annual TCA Awards presentation. The prestigious organization’s event was held at the Beverly Hilton hotel, hosted by EMMY® and TONY®-winning entertainer Kristin Chenoweth.

The results were determined from votes cast by the TCA’s membership, comprised of more than 220 professional TV critics and journalists from the United States and Canada. The winners represent a diverse lineup of series and stars in 12 distinct categories, putting the spotlight on the absolute best in comedy, drama, reality, miniseries, news, and youth programming. Highlights included Hulu earning its first TCA awards on the strength of its freshman dystopian thriller THE HANDMAID’S TALE, which took home top honors for Program Of The Year and Outstanding Achievement In Drama; as well as ABC’s heartwarming family comedy SPEECHLESS, which won in the category of Outstanding Achievement In Youth for its unique family dynamic and strong, heartfelt storylines.

For the second year in a row, FX emerged as one of the evening’s biggest winners. The network snagged a TCA-leading three awards thanks to its dynamic new series ATLANTA, which earned Outstanding Achievement In Comedy, and scored an Individual Achievement In Comedy Award for series star and creator Donald Glover. Rounding out the network’s big night was an Individual Achievement In Drama Award for Carrie Coon, who made TCA awards history by being recognized for two separate performances. Coon was recognized for her standout roles as the tech-challenged police chief Gloria Burgle on FX’s twisting crime caper FARGO and playing the emotionally resilient Nora Durst on HBO’s spiritually-rich drama series THE LEFTOVERS.

Additionally, NBC’s beloved interpersonal drama THIS IS US was recognized as the season’s Outstanding New Program; HBO’s star-studded suburban murder mystery BIG LITTLE LIES came away with the award for Outstanding Achievement In Movies, Miniseries, and Specials; A&E’s investigative true-life series LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH received the award for Outstanding Achievement In Reality Programming; and ESPN’s provocative five-part documentary event O.J.: MADE IN AMERICA nabbed Outstanding Achievement In News and Information.

At Vanity Fair’s inaugural Founders Fair last April, entrepreneurial women—including Tory Burch, Reese Witherspoon, and the co-chairs of the Women’s March—talked about what it takes.

While there’s ample evidence that there are still ceilings for professional women to shatter (Exhibit A: the White House), female entrepreneurs are having a moment. This was plain to witness at the first Vanity Fair Founders Fair, at 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, in April, where risk-takers, business leaders, and investors shared stories of having ignored naysayers and turning bright ideas into businesses. Tory Burch, in conversation with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, explained why she firmly believes retail still has a place—alongside e-commerce—in her eponymous fashion empire. The national co-chairs of the Women’s March told how they turned angst from disparate Facebook groups into 1.2 million placard-wielding, pink-hat-wearing demonstrators the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Reese Witherspoon—a producer, Oscar-winning actress, and the founder of lifestyle brand Draper James—revealed how she still isn’t taken as seriously as her male counterparts. “A guy has one hit and they say he deserves an Oscar. One guy will have a hit at Sundance and he gets Jurassic Park,” she said. “A woman has a hit at Sundance and it takes her like six more movies to get a big movie.” Indeed, grit was a theme of the event. Julie Deane, founder of the Cambridge Satchel Company, described how she started her business by calling a shopkeeper every 35 minutes for almost two days until he revealed the name of a key supplier. “This is where being the most tenaciously annoying person and the best nagger in the world really comes into its own,” she declared. With founders such as Deane growing in force, the glass ceiling doesn’t stand a chance.

The actress talks to THR about the future of the limited series, the other TV character she’d like to play and the project she had to turn down because of the critically lauded HBO drama.

Ever since Big Little Lies wrapped its critically lauded run on HBO in April, there have been rumblings of a possible second season of the limited series.

Reese Witherspoon tells The Hollywood Reporter that those conversations are ongoing, and that she’s “optimistic” about doing more of the drama, which is based on Liane Moriarty’s book of the same name.

Ahead of the Emmys, the Oscar-winning actress chatted with THR about the future of the limited series, the other TV character she’d like to play and the project she had to turn down because of Big Little Lies.

There’s been talk of a potential second season of Big Little Lies. What’s the latest?

Honestly, it’s totally in [novelist] Liane Moriarty’s court. The ball is definitely in her court because these characters were born of her mind and her imagination, and we just want to see if she’s interested in creating more story about these characters. She really created an incredible road map for us that we followed almost to a T. Right now, we’re happy if this is all there is. We’re optimistic that there might be more.

And you’re talking to writer David E. Kelley about a second season as well?

Yes, he’s our producing partner.

What goes into the decision of continuing a limited series?

It just comes down to, do we have the story? It was a stand-alone book and there was nothing after that, so it’s up to the mind of the writer to create the vision for the journey of these characters. Right now, we have nothing. We don’t have a book. We’re certainly not going to create it out of thin air. [Moriarty’s] very deft at, first of all, creating tension through mystery, but also digging deep into the very intimate lives of female friendships — their relationships, their romantic relationships, their parenting styles.

Set on Sydney’s northern beaches, Penguin Bloom is the true story of a unique little bird that saves a family. The book is written by Bradley Trevor Greive, with photographs by Cameron Bloom. Cameron and Sam Bloom and their three boys were an everyday family until a shocking, near-fatal accident left Sam paralyzed. She fell from a balcony while on holiday in Thailand, and was left paralyzed from the chest down. As the family struggled to adjust to her new situation, an unlikely ally entered their lives in the form of an injured Magpie chick which the Bloom clan called Penguin. The wild bird became a mascot for the family. The book was published in April in the U.S. under the title Penguin The Magpie.

Grant’s recent scripting credits include the Teresa Palmer-starrer Berlin Syndrome, the Aussie film Jasper Jones and Snowtown. Other percolating projects include True History Of The Kelly Gang, which reunites Grant with Snowtown helmer Justin Kurzel, and the political thriller A Man With No Enemies.

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